LAND FILL

Land Fill



Land Fill

Introduction

This paper presents a critical appraisal on the topic of landfill. The essay opens with an overview of the topic, followed by a brief historical context of waste management, the issues related to the topic and the current perspective on landfill.

Landfills represent an engineered approach to the land disposal of wastes. In many countries, landfills are the primary means for managing municipal solid wastes and other wastes such as construction and demolition debris. Specially designed landfills are used for the disposal of hazardous and even radioactive wastes. Landfills represent an improvement over the open dumps they replaced and yet create serious problems of their own, including finding suitable sites, controlling leachate and gas emissions, and long-term care and monitoring.

Globally, the amount of waste from human activities is increasing. In 2006, the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated globally was 2.02 billion tons (Global Waste Management Market Assessment, 2007, 1). Some estimates predict global MSW will increase by 37.3 percent from 2007 to 2011 (UNEP, 2009, 2). This enormous amount of waste requires appropriate disposal mechanisms. This essay also discusses some of the options available for waste disposal.

The simplest definition of waste includes all items no longer useful to humans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “solid waste means any garbage, or refuse, sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities” (Lindstrom, 2011, 645). However, the definition of waste is subjective, as waste to one community could be a resource to another community. Nevertheless, such a definition of waste helps in creating legal statutes and laws for management purposes.

Discussion

Historically, waste disposal was done as long ago as 500 B.C.E. in Athens, Greece. Disposal of waste became challenging with an increasing population (Mansvelt, 2011, 454). The Industrial Revolution of 1750-1850 increased the movement of population from rural areas to urban areas, which subsequently generated more waste. Governments created new laws to manage this increasing waste. In the United Kingdom, a law in 1297 required residents to keep the front of their homes clean, and the Public Health Act of 1875 required local authorities to remove and dispose waste (DiGregorio, 1994, 12).

After World War II, environmental and health concerns from waste disposal increased. Incidents like that at Love Canal, New York, in 1977 compelled nations to adopt effective strategies to manage their waste. For example, the European Union's strategy on waste management uses a concept of “hierarchy of waste management.” The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act banned all open dumping of waste and mandated strict controls over the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste (Mansvelt, 2011, 454).

Humans have always faced waste disposal challenges, and the general understanding of past societies owes much to the refuse piles they left behind. Historically, open dumps were the preferred means of refuse disposal and were simple in operation, if inelegant ...